The spark for the protests came from the University of Missouri – where students’ demands for racial justice had gone unheard. With the football team joining the protesting students, events took a different turn and resulted in the resignation of the president, Tim Wolfe. Thereafter, protests spread to over 100 other campuses.

Racism on campus

Over the past year, scholars writing for The Conversation have emphasized how much race continues to be a factor in students’ success – and not just in college, but even through their early school years.

In this environment, Fisher v University of Texas, a case challenging the University of Texas’s race-conscious admissions policy, took on even greater significance. The policy allows the university to build a racially and ethnically diverse student body. But the case challenging it says it violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Tenure, college costs, guns

The debates on university campuses in 2015 were many, and not just to do with race.

The issue of academic freedom became a fractious one after Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker put forward a proposal to slash spending on education and modify the state laws on tenure.

All over again, issues of college affordability were brought center-stage by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s announcement of a US$350 billion debt-free college plan. Our experts argued how such a large expansion in federal dollars would come at a cost.

And while students struggled with debt, smaller colleges struggled to keep student enrollment high enough. One of them, Sweet Briar, a women’s liberal arts college, was among those hit hard by declining enrollment. While the board voted to close the doors, its alumnae made efforts to keep it going for at least another year.

In Texas, meanwhile, a “Campus Carry” gun law passed in spring 2015, raising faculty fears about the possibility of grade inflation.

Teachers, testing, new ESSA

If higher education was in turmoil, so was K-12.

Testing pressures led to an ever-growing number of parents, teachers and students “opting out” of testing across all 50 states. Some experts put the blame on the influence of a “network” of private actors over the policies implemented under US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who will be leaving office at the end of this year.

How then are teachers being evaluated? It isn’t clear. Not least when music teachers can be evaluated based on the math and reading scores of students.

In answer to some of these concerns, before the end of the year, President Obama signed The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) – which will replace the NCLB and end many of testing and evaluation policies, although experts still urge caution on wholeheartedly embracing the ESSA.

Despite the odds, schoolteachers and university professors remained unfailing in their commitment, innovation and dedication to their students. Indeed, innovative examples of teaching were among our best-read stories as well. Here are some: